Prior to the start of our Christmas fixtures, and certainly after that depressing West Ham home defeat, we would have taken four points from two games against West Brom and Huddersfield.

Therefore I’ll consider myself pleased with the points return, if not necessarily the performances.

When you’re in a tight spot, points trump performances and we shouldn’t lose sight of that fact.

We needed points and we got them, which has helped to move us away from the foot of the table.

We’re still just a couple of bad results away from being back in the mire, but we have some breathing space, especially with Chelsea away coming up and what looks like being a severely depleted squad available to us for that fixture.

Going back to the West Brom and Huddersfield games, the most pleasing aspect of our play came with the quality of the goals we scored.

There is clearly creativity to our play and we are capable of some genuinely good things when we are on top of our game.

Despite the many negatives which still exist within our squad I do still believe we have players who are capable of producing better than we’ve seen for much of this season.

Ramadan Sobhi celebrates scoring Stoke City's goal against Huddersfield Town at the John Smith's Stadium.

The last two games have not been without their negative points, though.

In the West Brom game we allowed what should have been a comfortable half-time winning position to descend into a frantic second-half rearguard action, where we were actually a little bit lucky to hold on to our lead before adding that breakaway goal right at the death.

The stats back up how fortunate we actually were; West Brom had 57 per cent possession, 11 corners to our one and 17 goal attempts to our nine.

The way we were hanging on for dear life for almost the entire second half was bewildering.

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Joe Allen, who was our man of the match by a country mile at Huddersfield, has been performing heroics over the past couple of months, while Darren Fletcher goes through something of a slump in form.

Our ‘Welsh Pirlo’ has been absolutely magnificent, covering every inch of the pitch and running himself into the ground. We can’t expect him to keep that going, though, and we need some extra cover in the middle.

As for right-back, the last two games have given us a fairer idea of what Tom Edwards can bring to the squad – he looks a great prospect.

There’s no denying, though, that it’s a part of the team where we’re dangerously lacking in cover. We need to bring somebody in.

The forward position provides one of the most vexing questions for Mark Hughes.

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We’re now in a situation where we have to use Peter Crouch as a regular starter, given that there is clearly something going on with Jesé behind the scenes and that we appear to have given up completely on Saido Berahino as a potential starter.

Speak to any Stoke fan who watches our games and one of the most regular concerns expressed is the lack of pace in our attacking play.

We look so cumbersome at times, have taken increasingly to just lumping the ball up towards Crouchy, and the situation really needs to be addressed.

If the club are sticking with Mark Hughes then they are going to have to back him.